The tutoring consists of before- and after-school sessions. Students are strongly encouraged to buy an ACT prep book.
“I decided to start this because there are many scholarships available, specifically the North Dakota State Scholarship, where you have to earn a 24 or higher,” BHS English teacher Rosann Jacobs Fode said. “It is basically free money because it requires no essay.”
Two hours of ACT prep count as 1 hour of class instruction time.
“If they come to multiple sessions once they take the AP exam, they are done for the remainder of the school year,” Fode said. “Most of the students have six days of comp time built up.”
The ACT sessions start at the end of February to prepare for the April ACT.
“It is crazy to see how well students can do when they have clear expectations of what is on a test, especially in English,” Fode said. “Some of the kids do not have really strong grammar skills, but they can put the time into it and learn the rules. There is a lot of growth in that area.”
Kids can come from 7:40 to 8:25 am or from the eighth period to 4:10 pm.
“Morning is most popular,” Fode said. “I would urge students not to take practice tests but actually spend time correcting the ones they got wrong.”
The ACT can also help determine where students are placed in colleges or universities.
“They do not necessarily require the ACT to get accepted, but they require testing for placement purposes,” Fode said. If the student has not taken the ACT, they are going to have to take an Accuplacer to get into Comp 110 or a college algebra class.”
Students also take the ACT to get scholarships.
“My goal is to get as many scholarships as possible to pay for college, and doing well on the ACT is a great way to get scholarships,” BHS Junior Aubrey Vatnsdal said.
When they want to study, students can pick a time.
“I personally attended in the morning from 7:40 to 8:25 am because that is when it worked best for me,” Vatsndal said. “I preferred the morning because I had other things going on after school.”
Students can decide how often they want to go.
“I tried to go once a week because that is what worked best in my schedule, but I liked having the option to go more and the flexibility to change what day of the week I went,” Vatsndal said. “Some weeks I went 2-3 times, and some weeks I did not make it all, but it just depended on what I had going on that week.”
Each session is individualized, and students can choose what they want to work on.
“We worked through practice tests in sections with a group,” Vatsndal said. “We had the choice of working on one section from each subject, such as a passage for English, reading, and science or 10 questions for math, then set a timer for how long that section should take us on the actual exam.”
Students have learned various tips to be stronger on the ACT.
“The majority of the ACT is pacing it correctly to have time to answer all the questions,” Vatsndal said. “There is no way I would have gotten to all the questions on the actual ACT without the pacing practice I put forth in these sessions.”
